People often ask if they should do a 200-hour yoga teacher training even if they don’t plan to become a yoga teacher. I always answer with a resounding, ‘Yes!’ A foundational yoga teacher training is a wonderful opportunity to experience the vastness of yoga that is difficult to experience in a 60 or 90-minute class. But it’s important that you choose a high quality program.

Whether you want to become a yoga teacher or have no plans to teach, there are fundamental, universal yoga truths that need to be taught in order to create a solid foundation.

The following are seven vital things to look for in a 200-hour yoga teacher training. (And, by the way, Jason and I will be offering a 200-hour yoga teacher training starting this September, 2018, in San Francisco. You can find all the details here.)

200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training: 7 Things to Look For

1). Safe, Up-to-Date Asana Practice

Yoga is a wonderful, beneficial practice when done safely. And yet, it’s no secret that yoga injuries have been on the rise in recent years. (I even spoke about my own experiences with injury on a Yogaland podcast with Andrea recently.)

As a result, Jason and I have both made changes to the way we sequence vinyasa yoga classes (read: we’ve changed things up to reduce repetitive stress) and we don’t teach asana alignment in a “traditional way” just because it’s traditional. We both believe that there are instances where traditional asana alignment should be re-examined to help facilitate a safer practice.

Finally, we don’t subscribe to the idea that “deeper is better.” For students like myself who come to yoga with a flexible body, going deeper into flexibility doesn’t create balance. Focusing on strength does.

Bottom line: A topnotch 200-hour yoga teacher training will teach safe alignment, balanced sequencing that reduces repetitive stress, and perhaps most importantly, the idea that yoga postures are not one-size-fits-all.

As an added bonus, a good yoga teacher training will guide you toward a personal practice so that you can learn more about your own body and teach from a place of deep knowledge.

2). Essential Yoga Anatomy

A sound 200-hour yoga teacher training will help you become an active participant in your asana practice. You’ll increase the richness of the practice when you understand why you come into particular asana shapes and how the positions and actions affect your anatomy.

You’ll also learn the functions of your muscular and skeletal structure, both in your everyday life and in your yoga practice. And you’ll learn which muscles and bones are at risk in particular postures and how to protect those areas.

3). Philosophy and History

In an everyday yoga class, it can be hard to grasp the philosophical underpinnings of the practice. Look for a foundational yoga teacher training that covers the foundational texts: The Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra and more. (You can find the reading list for our 200-hour yoga teacher training here.)

Ideally, you’ll gain insight as to where the practice originated from, and why we continue to do asana, meditation, and the other eight limbs of yoga. These teachings can bring purpose and meaning to your practice, your teaching, and your life.

4). Skillful, Intelligent Hands-On Adjustments

As with safe alignment, thoughtful teachers have re-examined how to offer safe manual adjustments to students. Jason and I do not do deepening adjustments. Instead, we offer stabilizing adjustments. In a high quality 200-hour yoga teacher training, the days of laying our bodies over our students to get them to go deeper should be long gone.

5). The Importance of Community

One of my favorite things about teacher trainings is the community that develops. A special bond forms when you learn and spend so much time with others. One of my best friends is from my first 200-hour teacher training! Its nice to having fellow teacher friends to rise up with when building a yoga career. Growing with others and getting supporting from one another makes the journey much more enjoyable!

6). Confidence

Many of us are unsure if we are “doing it right” when we come to our yoga practice. A high-quality yoga teacher training will help you build confidence in your own practice and give you tools to share your yoga knowledge and help others.

7). Life Coping Skills

We live in stressful times and many of use don’t know how to deal with the pressures and demands being put on us by society and our personal life. A good yoga teacher training will give you the tools to observe your patterns and tendencies, and why you suffer and react the way you do. The training will give you the life skills to show up and handle the same situations in a healthier, less stress inducing way.

“Meditation and yoga are for New Age, magical thinkers who are out of touch with reality and have too much time on their hands.”

These might have been some of my own personal excuses I made to the person that was dragging me to my first yoga class more than 20 years ago. She didn’t listen to me. And, really, why should she have listened? I was wrong on all counts. At the time, it was unclear just how profoundly wrong I was. Time would tell a different story.

So, what was my deal? Well, it was simple: I didn’t understand anything about meditation or yoga. So, my mind made up an incorrect story based on very little information. If this sounds familiar, it’s because we all do it from time to time. One of the many problems with this hard-headed tendency is that we cut ourselves off from experiences that can be incredibly valuable to us—like yoga and meditation.

If we fast-forward two decades to the present moment, I do meditate and I do practice yoga. Both are inextricable elements of my life. If you’re familiar with my classes or online content, you already know that I practice yoga. It’s possible, however, that you don’t know that I meditate. I do. Here’s why.

Why I Meditate

There are countless modern articles that extol the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of meditation. Arguably the entire tradition of yoga would not exist without meditation. Personally, I meditate for three reasons—any other positive side effects of my sitting practice are an added bonus:

1) Sometimes my life feels like a run-on sentence and my meditation practice gives me much needed punctuation. Like everyone else I know, I jump from one thing to another thing in a seemingly endless series of minor events. My meditation practice helps me press the pause button in my life. It helps curb my neurotic impulse to plow through every moment of my life without registering any of them.

2) My meditation practice helps me bear witness to the sensations of my body, the thoughts of my mind, and the feeling of my breath. All of these things are genuinely interesting to me. I’ve always been curious about the human condition and my meditation practice gives me a live glimpse into the phenomenon.

3) My meditation practice balances my active practice by providing me with a complementary physical experience. I like to work intensely in my body. But, I also like the sensory experience of being still. Working intensely and being still both provide physical feedback loops that I use to focus my attention. For me, they’re an inseparable pair.

5 Common Excuses for not Meditating—and why MOST of them are weak

Excuse #1, “My mind isn’t still.”

Counterpoint: Your mind is never going to be still. Never. And, whoever gave you that impression didn’t meditate either. Instead, when you meditate, you’re going to simply observe the activity of your mind so that you can witness your thoughts with greater objectivity. Your mind will still be active because you’re still alive. But, when you meditate consistently, your mind’s activity (usually) settles just enough that there is a lessening of pressure around your thoughts.

Excuse #2, “I don’t have time.”

Counterpoint: You actually do have time, you’re just in the habit of doing other things with your time. And, honestly, you may not be able to make time for meditation every day of your life. Life can get away from us once in a while. However, sitting for 10 minutes a few times a week is plausible for nearly everyone.

Excuse #3, “Meditation is for New Age, magical thinkers who are out of touch with reality and have too much time on their hands.”

Counterpoint: What kind of a person would think this?!?!

Excuse #4, “I can’t sit still.”

Counterpoint: Honestly, this is someone of sound and able body saying, “I can’t move.” Yes, you can. You can sit still. You might be lousy at sitting still. Sitting still might drive you crazy. But, you can sit still. In fact, this makes me think that you might need some practice sitting still. But, wait, how can one practice sitting still??? Oh, that’s right.

Excuse #5, “I don’t know how to meditate.”

Counterpoint: This is NOT lame. This is legitimate. Like so many other things in life, it’s helpful to have some guidance when you’re starting something new—or, trying to stay consistent. If this is your excuse, you’re in luck. I have answers for you below.

How to Start Meditating: Yoga and Meditation Tips for People Who Don’t Meditate

There are countless resources on meditation online, in books, and in local communities. Here are a few resources that you may find helpful.

#1. I’ve released a program on Yogaglo.com called, “I Don’t Meditate.” Clearly, this program was the inspiration for the title of this blog and my recent podcast on Yogaland with Andrea Ferretti. The program consists of 6, 10-minute meditations. You can learn more about the Yogaglo program, here. And, if you haven’t listed to the podcast, please check it out here. Yogaglo has additional meditation classes from exceptional teachers like Sally Kempton, Harshada Wagner, and more.

#2. Jack Kornfield and other meditation teachers at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, CA and the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, are exceptional resources. Jack—and many of the other teachers at Spirit Rock—offer podcasts, guided meditation, and dharma talks that will provide you with endless guidance along the path of meditation.

#3. Local dharma teachers or groups in your area can provide you with guidance and community. Not everyone will have access to a local community of meditators. However, many do. You may even consider driving to a meditation center or sitting group once a month if you live further away. These communities provide support and inspiration that can be invaluable.

I hope that these resources will get you sitting, taking inventory of yourself, and making sure that you don’t make the mistake that I made of saying that you “don’t meditate.”

I think I’m pretty good at teaching yoga. But, I also think I get lazy once in a while and I don’t expose students to the world of backward bending that exist beyond Urdhva Dhanurasana. I regularly teach a couple of prone backbends, some bridge pose variations, then conclude the backward bending series with Urdhva Dhanurasana. That’s it. Time and time again. So, I’ve turned over a new leaf. We’re going beyond Urdhva Dhanurasana in all of my experienced-level classes. And, the first pose to tackle in this progression is Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana.

If you have a reasonable degree of proficiency in Urdhva Dhanurasana, you can start working on lifting one of your legs for Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana. It’s literally one step away.

But, this step introduces a ton of instability into the posture, so there a few things I like to do in order to make the posture accessible—and less likely to make your SI and lower-back feel tweaky.

How to Find Balance in an Asymmetrical Pose

First, Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana is referred to as an asymmetrical backbend. There’s an essential component of alignment in asymmetrical backbends that applies to this one, too. Ready? It’s essential that only part of your body that is asymmetrical are your legs.

You do NOT want your hips to be asymmetrical or your spine to be asymmetrical. Your top leg is flexing and your bottom leg is extending. The pelvis, however, needs to stay level and your spine needs to backbend without any twisting motion. Rotating your spine while doing a deep backbend may over stress your lower-back.

There are a couple of ways to keep your hips level in Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana. First, the leg that stays connected to the floor has to work much harder. Obvious, right? In particular, the abductors and the gluteus maximus on the standing leg need to work like mad. Without intense engagement in these muscles, your opposite hip (the side of the lifted leg) will drop slightly toward the floor. If this hip drops, the pelvis and spine will rotate. Not good. Also, be mindful that engaging your glutes and outer hip muscles may externally rotate and abduct your bottom leg. I don’t actually have a problem with this, since it’s preferable to the opposite hip collapsing. But, if you don’t like the feel of it, you can also hug your leg toward the midline by engaging your adductors.

Committing to strongly reaching your top leg toward the ceiling also helps keep the pelvis level. You can’t phone in this pose. You’ve got to reach the top leg full barrel. To do this, I like to pull my lifted knee toward my chest as strongly as I can. Then, I reach my top heel toward the ceiling. I find that flexing the top foot instead of pointing my top foot gives me more levity and height in the posture.

Tips for Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana

There are two more details that help me with Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana. First, I step my feet a little closer to each other before lifting my leg. Second, I place my hands wider apart than I do for Urdhva Dhanurasana by about six inches.

Think about it this way. In regular Urdhva Dhanurasana, you have a rectangular base. When you lift one foot off the ground for Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana, you have a triangular base. In order to make the triangular base of Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana more stable, it’s helpful to broaden the arms and center the remaining foot. This provides more stability in the posture, which allows for greater range of motion.

Give these steps a try and see how the pose feels in your body. Of course, your practice isn’t just about doing harder things like Eka Pada Urdhva Dhanurasana. It’s also about continuing to learn and grow. And, even if you can’t do this variation, practicing it a time or two will make the regular version of Urdhva Dhanurasana feel like a piece of cake.

Nearly six years ago, my daughter Sofia-Rose was born. She brought me happiness I could have never imagined. She also obliterated my home practice beyond all recognition for more than a year.

Before she was born, I was so hopped-up on adrenaline, oxytocin, and optimism (not always my strength) that I didn’t think her birth would change my practice. In fact, I was delusional enough to think that her birth would inspire even greater dedication to my practice. I thought her presence would be my shot at a complete renewal, a total overhaul in which nothing could get between my mat and me.

Yes, I love her to the point that it makes me tremble. Yes, parenting has taught me more about patience, breath, and love than the rest of my life combined. No, I wouldn’t trade her for the world. But did my practice stay the same? [email protected]#l no! Not even close. My asana practice crumbled to a shell of its former self and I grew a Dad-bod like you wouldn’t believe. Even more to the point of this post, my teaching temporarily suffered with these changes. Now, it’s better than ever since I have more life experience to draw on (and I’ll share some of the yoga teaching tips I learned below). But, I didn’t see this at the time.

Everyone goes through different chapters in life. Everyone faces curveballs. And, like a good curveball, you usually don’t see them coming. Being a yoga practitioner and yoga teacher doesn’t inoculate you from life. It just provides you with insight and skills that help you manage the complexity of the human condition.

Since we all face unforeseen circumstances from time to time that affect our practice and teaching, it’s important to know how to stay honest and authentic in your teaching when your life gets (even more) complicated.

Here are some practical yoga teaching tips to work with:

1. Don’t Press Too Hard

When baseball players are in a slump, they sometimes perpetuate it further by pressing—or, becoming overly eager to make something happen. This undermines their ability to relax and respond to the game in a skillful way. I’ve noticed the same thing in myself at times. When my teaching becomes stale, I often overcompensate by trying too hard. I get too wordy, too complicated, and too hurried.

If you’re going through a challenging phase in your teaching, try this tip instead: Step back slightly and let the practice shine. Minimize the impulse to overdo and trust that the practice itself will be enough for your students.

2. Be Transparent Without Being Overly-Indulgent

Never make class about you and what you’re going through. After all, the students are paying you—you’re not paying them for group therapy. At the same time, it’s nice to be relatively transparent and to acknowledge what’s happening in your life (at least in limited doses). Students appreciate the reminder that you’re a real, flesh and blood person—and, that yoga is a practical, accessible practice for everyone (at all times). It’s likely that many of your students have experienced what you’re currently going through and this may help them connect to your teaching even more deeply.

3. Don’t Radically Change Your Class or Teaching Style

It’s important to be consistent with your students. When teachers go through a significant transition in their lives, they sometimes make abrupt stylistic changes to their teaching. While it’s important to be relatively transparent, it’s also essential to provide a consistent experience for your students. If you’re a teaching a vinyasa class, don’t randomly teach a Yin or restorative class because you’re tired or overwhelmed. Sure, you can play with the pace, but be responsive to your students and provide them with the class that they came for.

4. Practice – Even If It Looks Very Different Now

My practice was shorter, milder, less frequent, and less focused for 18-months or so after Sofia was born. But I still practiced. I still connected to my breath and did the occasional Sun Salutation. I still did some shoulder and hip openers most evenings. I also made sure to have one slightly more intense practice each week. Instead of being attached to the way you were practicing before the curveball came across your plate, do whatever you can to survive the storm—and do your best to savor it.

One Thing to Learn About Lizard Pose

I’ve been easier, softer and lighter on my hips for the last couple of years. I used to bludgeon them with intense leverage and long holds, thinking that I was creating more flexibility. I finally came to terms with the reality that this approach usually left my hips feeling achy, sore, and stiff for a couple of days. After nearly two decades, I’ve changed my tactics.

I still stretch my hips and I still hold postures for a reasonable duration. I still practice lunges like Anjaneyasana (Low Lunge), Crescent (High Lunge), Pigeon Pose, and Lizard—the topic of this instructional. I still love “hip-openers,” and I teach them regularly. Of course, I balance this approach more skillfully than I have in the past by including more strengthening work for my hips. But, also, I treat my hips like the dynamic joint they are when I do “opening” postures. Instead of staying for long periods in the same pose, I do several repetitions of the same posture. For example, instead of staying in Pigeon for 3 minutes, I might do 3 or 4 versions of Pigeon for approximately 1 minute each. Instead of loading all my weight onto my hips during deep lunges, I often use my arms actively so they take some of my weight instead of letting it all go into my hips.

Lizard Pose is perfect for this approach. When you look at the illustration of me in Lizard above, you’ll see two important details that will keep you lighter: My elbows are on the floor directly under the shoulders and my front shin is vertical. Try it this way—instead of sinking all of your weight into your hips, press your forearms and front foot down into the floor to lighten the load on your hips.

If you’re a little less flexible, put a block or two under your elbows. You’ll still get plenty of stretch in your hips, but these actions will slighty lessen the intensity. I’ve come to believe this is a good thing. If you want more intensity, add a few more repetitions.

Experiment with this approach to stretching your hips and see if having a lighter touch is helpful to you. Let me know how it goes in the comments section. Enjoy.

WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE ABOUT ANATOMY, SEQUENCING, AND TEACHER TRAINING?

I offer both online trainings and live, in-the-flesh ones around the world. Here are a few of the courses that are currently open. (For a full schedule, go to my Schedule page.):

Andrea Ferretti and Jason Crandell are a husband and wife team who have been teaching, writing about, and living their yoga for nearly two decades. Andrea is creative director for Jason Crandell Yoga Method. Jason is an internationally recognized vinyasa yoga teacher. They live together in San Francisco with their full-time boss, Sofia-Rose Crandell, age 5. To find out where you can train with Jason live, check out the Schedule page.